This is in response to the Sun Journal story,”Safer than it feels?” (Nov. 4).

For 18 years, I have said that “I live in the ghetto but the ghetto does not live in me.” Ghetto culture has taken hold of some people’s hearts who live in the downtown. What might seem wrong, filthy or dangerous to some might not seem that way to someone else. Some people have low standards and loose values. Some care, some do not.

I know that Lewiston city officials and the police are trying to make the city a better and safer place. The community police officers who are at the substation across the street from my house are wonderful men, but I have said it many times: we do not need officer friendly downtown — we need a law enforcer who will not mess around.

With a police substation across the street, I am either in a very safe neighborhood or a very dangerous one.

Police Chief Michael Bussiere himself has labeled the problems we have come to know as “hot spots,” and I don’t mean a vacation destination for people from outside the area. However, by the number of cars bearing license plates from Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut that can be found in the inner-city on any given night, one might think recreation is within reach. I believe that much of that traffic consists of unsavory characters committing crimes in this community.

I will keep the police in my prayers.

Douglas Taylor, Lewiston